I tend to think of the BR world as a parallel universe of ours. Seeing how Elvis and Vladimir Nabokov clearly exist in that world, it got me thinking this morning about where the two timelines might have diverged? I guess the simplest answer would be around the 70s / 80s, but given the hugely advanced tech even by 2019 I feel like their had to be some kind of major technological breakthrough before then. Just something I've been chewing on while nursing this hangover ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Atari began in 1972.
World War Terminus occurs at some point of course, I would say the eighties, height of cold war so that is when I think it would be.
Technological advancement depicted by 2019 was not realistic, as a lot of Sci Fi does they put the year far too early for the drama of 'near future".
I don't think we are going to find a magic pill to explain the tech, let's just say Asia/Japan propelled it since the tech growth there was the trend back then, maybe they dodged the big impact of the war.

Atari began in 1972.
World War Terminus occurs at some point of course, I would say the eighties, height of cold war so that is when I think it would be.
Technological advancement depicted by 2019 was not realistic, as a lot of Sci Fi does they put the year far too early for the drama of 'near future".
I don't think we are going to find a magic pill to explain the tech, let's just say Asia/Japan propelled it since the tech growth there was the trend back then, maybe they dodged the big impact of the war.

Too true, too true. Writers should always tack on a couple extra hundred years to be on the safe side

I do hate it when they portray a future too far advanced for the amount of years it is away from us. True we have had rapid technology advances, but jut building the Tyrell Pyramids would take a very long time.

For enjoyment's sake I figure the timelines diverged a fair amount of time ago- maybe as far as the twenties. While the time lines diverged, there are a number of things which stayed consistent between them- both worlds had Atari and PanAm, but in Blade Runner'e timeline those two companies still thrived.

The Flying Cars could stem from a small handful of innovations/discoveries which only occurred over in BR's Timeline, in ours the inventors might have never gotten funding.

Still, I do hate it when we are shown such wonderful futures and live to never see then fulfilled- I was born in 1958 and I still remember what '2001- A Space Odyssey' promised...

I always find that, while there are tons of things that they overestimate, there are a fair amount that they underestimate, as well. Smart phones, video/computer technology usually being at the top of that list.

This is a fascinating topic. If we view the multiverse more like an infinitely diverging 'branches of a tree' time flow model that branches out like a spherical tree, rather than the more typically depicted globular, or soap bubble model, then we can imagine more clearly that, while we all share the trunk of the tree, our universe seems to have diverged on the opposite side of the trunk from the BR universe (B.R.U.). I imagine the twig that is the BRU to share a branch with the twigs that are populated by the universes of, "Man in the High Castle" and "Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said". For sure in the world of "Man in the High Castle", you have a much earlier and more dominate introduction of Japanese culture in the western region of what was the U.S. But, this timeline has the issue of global nazism. In the book, while imperial Japan remained technologically stunted, compared to their nazi allies, the nazis made many technological advances that allowed them to make sub-orbital flights by rocket all over the planet, as well as, colonize the moon and Mars by 1962. In the 57 years that follow, from 1962 to 2019, something would need to happen which causes a complete divergence away from the nazis' an imperial Japan's totalitarian ideologies, since they are not dominating elements of the BRU. It is possible to argue that the BRU could have branched off from "Man in the High Castle" universe if the Reich fell and their technology was adopted and further advanced by its remnants and the PSA (pacific states of america). It's just easier to say that the BRU, the Man in the High Castle, and PKD's other novels with similar themes and technologies, share the same branch and that their branch and our branch share the same trunk.

Well, 2001 A Space Odyssey came very close to the tech we're using now, whether the IPad, portable computer, Skype (when Floyd calls his daughter) space shuttle, etc.

Space exploration is extremely expensive and cannot be done by one country only. The future can only be achieved with big players (China, Russia, Japan, U.S., U.K.,Australia,as well as private enterprises, etc) to build space ships in space, to install bases on the Moon and Mars and to come up with the technology for the 22nd Century.